Yeb Saño

Naderev “Yeb” Madla Saño is a Filipino climate change commissioner, environmentalist, philosopher, nature lover, and peace activitist. He is the chief negotiator in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). He serves as the Chair of the UNFCCC’s Long Term Finance Work Programme.

He is married to Eunice Agsaoay-Saño, an environmental and community lawyer. They have two children, Yanni Lorenzo and Marianne Amira.

Contents

Education

Saño is a graduate of the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He has undergraduate and graduate degrees in Philosophy and Community Development with focus on disaster management in relation to climate change. He also attended the College of Conservation Leadership in the Netherlands and the University College in Washington University.

Career

He has been working on climate change issues since 1997 as part of the NGO delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. He is a co-author of the paper “Perfect Storms: What the Philippines Can Do About Climate Change.”

He also managed projects on coastal resources and fisheries conservation and environmental education. For four years, he advocated for sustainable marine tourism in Central Visayas, specifically for Cebu and Bohol. He spent four years working with the local government of Lapu-Lapu City and established marine protected areas and set up the city's coastal law enforcement unit. He was also part of the team which developed the wildlife eco-tourism projects in Donsol, Sorsogon and Pamilican Island in Bohol.

From 2003 to 2004, he worked as a technical consultant at the Kho Agsaoay Benavidez Matammu Law Offices.

Saño also worked as head of the Climate Change and Energy Program of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Philippines. He was also the national director of the Earth Hour, the most massive environmental movement in the Philippines. He worked with the WWF for more than 12 years. He worked on domestic and international issues which relate to climate change, clean energy, biodiversity, coastal and marine resources, tourism, and local governance.

Since February 2008, he is a cluster action officer of the SWITCH Movement, a social mobilization for climate change and energy.

He is also an optimist who believes that climate change will be the unifying factor for our fragmented nation. He says that “climate change is our opportunity to make the Philippines a better nation. Even if it is a huge problem, it still has a positive side to it because it can change the way we govern our country … It is our only chance. This is a war and we will survive because there is no choice.”

Saño is the leader of the 50-strong Philippines delegation at the United Nations (UN) climate talks in Warsaw, Poland. He is currently in the limelight after he made an emotional speech in front of 190 countries. He linked man-made climate change to typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) which endangered Leyte and Samar provinces, as well as other parts of Eastern Visayas. He broke down in tears and declared that he would fast until the UN talks produced results. He urged governments' meeting in Poland to take emergency action to resolve the deadlocked climate talks.

"We cannot sit and stay helpless staring at this international climate stalemate. It is now time to take action. We need an emergency climate pathway," said Yano in an article for the Guardian where he challenged climate skeptics to get off their towers to see the impacts of climate change firsthand.

He said that countries such as the Philippines do not have time to wait for an international climate deal, which countries have agreed to reach in Paris in 2015. He said that what his country is going through is a result of extreme climate event. This madness can be stopped right there in Warsaw. He added that typhoons like Haiyan and its impact act as reminders to the international community that people cannot procrastinate on climate action.

Yano said, "Science tells us that simply, climate change will mean more intense tropical storms. As the Earth warms up, that would include the oceans. The energy that is stored in the waters off the Philippines will increase the intensity of typhoons and the trend we now see is that more destructive storms will be the new norm."

He dared anyone who doubted man-made climate change to visit his country: "To anyone who continues to deny the reality that is climate change, I dare them to go to the islands of the Pacific, the islands of the Caribbean and the islands of the Indian ocean and see the impacts of rising sea levels; to the mountainous regions of the Himalayas and the Andes to see communities confronting glacial floods, to the Arctic where communities grapple with the fast dwindling polar ice caps, to the large deltas of the Mekong, the Ganges, the Amazon, and the Nile where lives and livelihoods are drowned, to the hills of Central America that confronts similar monstrous hurricanes, to the vast savannas of Africa where climate change has likewise become a matter of life and death as food and water becomes scarce. Not to forget the massive hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern seaboard of North America. And if that is not enough, they may want to pay a visit to the Philippines right now."

He added that carbon emissions reductions by developed countries would not be enough to avert catastrophe. "Developed country emissions reductions targets are dangerously low and must be raised immediately, but even if they were in line with the demand of reducing 40-50% below 1990 levels, we would still have locked-in climate change and would still need to address the issue of loss and damage."

He was agonizing over the fate of his relatives and had spent two days gathering the bodies of the dead. He asked people to sign a petition demanding progress and disappeared into the talks. About 200 people joined him on his fast.

After seven days without food, on 19 November 2013, he surfaced from the negotiations for a photocall to find that the petition he authored on Avaaz already has 650,000 signatures. His words were "It's a difficult time for the planet … we are deeply moved … I am standing here with hundreds if not millions of people … we are heartened … thank you … I am feeling well … I never used the word hunger … I don't think we should wait for the politicians … we need [to do] something urgently."

Members of the delegation said that they are 100% behind him as he helped put the issue on to the world stage and many people supported him in his cause. A member said that Saño is always in high spirits and energetic.

Ashok Chandwaney, a Sierra club delegate, said that Yaño “inspires us to act; we fast in solidarity with him, because that's what we can do. We ask those who make decisions about climate -- here at COP 19, back at the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), and around the world -- to listen to him, summon their courage, and dial up their ambition for the work we must do."

Saño is also a visiting lecturer at the College of Social Work and Community Development and a technical consultant at the Ateneo School of Government.

Workshops and conferences attended

Lead Negotiator/ Head of Delegation, Philippine Delegation to the UNFCCC

Keynote Speaker, The Philippine Climate Change Program: Updates and the Potential Role of the Academic and R&D Sector, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in AgricultureApril 19, 2011

Speaker, Presidential Commission for the Urban PoorForum on Climate Change and Its Challenges to the Urban Poor SectorInstitute of Social Order, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon CityNovember 11, 2009

Keynote Speaker, How Large is Your Carbon Footprint? Cebu Campus TourUniversity of San Carlos, University of Southern Philippines, University of Cebu, University of Visayas, Southwestern UniversitySeptember 23-27, 2008